reimporting graphics for new bells and whistles

[Goldmund]

Hey, I feel stupid for asking, but I'm really ignorant in the domain of graphics.

I would like to see how my game in progress would look with the new options provided by our wonderful Pumaman - that is, mainly character anti-aliasing - but I have no idea how to do it.
My game is in grayscale, 640x400, hi-color and all my sprites were saved in this format as pcx. When I try to transform them to 16bit in photoshop, the image becomes "locked". Transparent areas around the characters were done pixel by pixel in one shade.

What should I do to change them to this cool hi-tech new format?

[GarageGothic]

Heh, it's nice too see that even an oldie like Goldmund is having trouble fit for the beginner's forum . I've been messing around with the alpha channel import for some days to add new effects to Shadowplay, and I've found that the only(?) way of doing it properly is to create the art with no background in Photoshop. Obviously this is a problem in your case, where everything is already finished. My one suggestion is that you use the magic wand to select the background color, but use the "feather" setting to turn the edge pixels of the character semi-translucent. Then delete the background. It should work. Another way is to delete the background, and then use the eraser around the edges.

I warn you though, it's a bitch trying to "touch up" art when using alpha channels.

Edit: What do you mean that it becomes "locked"? If you mean the layer in Photoshop, you can just "duplicate layer" and then delete the original layer.

Edit 2: You might want to use a grey background which you later remove. If you use something like pink, you're likely to get some pinkish grays in the transparent edge area. There's a technical reason for this, which I don't remember. But somebody explained it in the forum back when CJ introduced alpha channels in AGS.  

[Goldmund]

splendid! thanks, gg! I'll come back whining if something goes wrong.